LAUSR

Introduction/Background Low back pain (LBP) is one of major reasons that influence people's life quality and lead to dysfunction. Modality therapy or manual therapy were usually used to reduce pain. Mental practice (MP) had been applied to intervene on pain on subject with spinal cord injury, and virtual reality (VR) also had been verify that could reduce chronic pain and kinesiophobia. The purpose of this study is to investigated the immediate effects of virtual reality mental practice (VRMP) for subjects with LBP. Material and method Nine subjects suffered from LBP were recruited (2 males and 7 females, age = 33.670 ± 16.560). Each subject had two types of intervention while suffering from pain, one was using VR glasses (Cardboard®) to watch LBP therapeutic exercise video in sitting and asked them to imagine as if they were doing the exercise shown in the video (VRMP); another type asked subjects to rest in sitting as long as the video clip (Rest). Before and after intervention, Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), range of motion (ROM), Oswestry disability index (ODI) and Fear avoidance beliefs questionnaire (FABQ) were assessed. The sequence of two types of intervention was assigned randomly. The data was analyzed by paired t-test and statistical significance was set as alpha  Results Before interventions, all assessments had no significant differences between VRMP and Rest. After VRMP intervention, VAS, FABQ, ODI and ROM (extension and side bending) showed significant improvements, but there were no significant differences found in Rest. However, in post-assessments, only VAS (VRMP 1.330 ± 1.414 vs. Rest 2.670 ± 1.581, P = 0.042) and FABQ (VRMP 26.000 ± 17.270 vs. Rest 32.670 ± 11.916, P = 0.029) had significant differences between two types of intervention. Conclusion Our results showed that VRMP had immediate effects on pain relief and kinesiophobia in subjects with LBP.